It's hard to believe Minnesota indie rock quartet Hippo Campus have not actually released their debut album yet, given the success of their first two EPs, Bashful Creaturesand . SouthBefore being old enough to drink, the St Paul natives (who were all students of the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists) had performed at South by Southwest, Lollapalooza, Red Rocks, and Conan.
Their latest song and music video for "Boyish" comes with an announcement for the release date of their first full-length album Landmark (February 24, 2017), which will be supported by a a UK tour (beginning in late January) and a US/Canada tour (beginnning in mid-February).
As befitting the track's title, "Boyish" crackles with youthful exuberance and energy; Hippo Campus successfully delivers yet another upbeat and bright indie rock track punctuated by accelerated drumming and guitar lines. But if you listen carefully to Jake Luppen's vocals, there are some faint tinges of melancholy in this evocation of adolescent's incandescent joys and thrills:
'Our stucco arms are forever tied looseYour velvet touch sends me back to the moonDaddy’s coming home but mammas looking guiltyBrothers in the basement ’til he's standingWolf child’s heavy with the weight of the worldStowing all his love in an adolescent girlThere's sunlight dripping off the apricot treeLost to the night tide growing in meSinging to the drunks like our momma didAll we ever knew is what we didn't haveNever really knew if I did something wrongAll I ever heard was "it wasn't my fault"But what good is truth if you don't understandNothing but a pair of calloused hands?'
Lyrics: Genius
The figurative phrases ('Wolf child’s heavy with the weight of the world/ Stowing all his love in an adolescent girl'; 'There's sunlight dripping off the apricot tree/ Lost to the night tide growing in me') stand out, but the track is too fast-paced to dwell on the full implications of their meaning. What do the apricots symbolize? The surreal and quirky music video certainly foregrounds them (there are multiple apricot trees, paintings of apricots, and a centerpiece banquet with apricot juice, fresh apricots and dried apricots). Hippo Campus' penchant for sonic directness and lyrical ambiguity makes it difficult to determine what they allude to - one more reason to have the track on repeat.
